Questions and Answers
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Michandrea AU. Oneshot. The dress was terrible. The event was even worse. But there might still be some hope for the evening. Michonne/Andrea


**AN: This is a scene from the Tumblr prompt that wanted Michandrea meeting as two miserable people at a wedding.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Michonne gratefully found a seat, shucked off her heels, and leaned back against the wall that was right behind her chair. She wore heels nearly every day to work. The moment she got home, though, the heels from hell came off. That's just how it had to be.

And she didn't like wearing them on her days off. Not even if she was wearing them for a wedding. No—especially not if it was for a wedding.

The last wedding Michonne had been to was her own. It had been years ago, and her divorce had already come and gone as well. She was all for love, of course, but she could celebrate your dedication to your everlasting love from a distance.

At least, though, the wedding was over. Now it was basically just time to sit back and watch everyone drink and dance and celebrate this "joyful union" for a bit. For Michonne, in particular, it was time to plan how she was going to spend the next two days because her parents—angels that they could be sometimes, at least when it came to their granddaughters—had her children for a long weekend.

Mama needed the time off and Daddy—or as she liked to think of him, the "sperm donor"—was difficult to find since he'd found Candy, Cupcake, Cinnamon, or whatever delicious "flavor of the month" that was keeping him far too occupied for the little girls that he'd helped to create and promptly forgotten about.

Michonne waited, for some moments, for someone to bring drinks around, but it seemed that she was on the guest list of the permanently ignored. She glanced toward the tables where drinks were set up for them to get—if they weren't being waited on by the three men with trays—and debated whether or not her shoes were worth it.

She left the shoes, but she did gather herself up and head over there to peruse the snacks. The punch, she decided, must be pretty good because one of the women wearing one of the puke green bridesmaid dresses was camped out next to it and drinking from it by dipping her punch cup into it like a ladle every few moments.

"You know," Michonne said, walking over there, "they do have a ladle in there—if you wanted to use it."

The bridesmaid, clearly disgruntled, looked at Michonne with some challenge on her face.

"If I wanted to use it," she said, "I would. As it turns out? I don't."

Michonne snorted.

"Fair enough," she said. "Can I? Or did you just want to—dip me up some?"

The woman smirked at her and dipped her cup in the punch bowl. She met Michonne's challenge by doing just what she thought Michonne wouldn't expect her to do. She transferred the punch from her cup to the plastic one that MIchonne was holding while keeping her eyes primarily locked on Michonne's.

Michonne sucked her teeth to keep from smiling at the act.

She looked at the cup, raised her eyebrows, and then gestured in false toast at the woman.

"Cheers," she said. "You hardly even got any on the table cloth."

The woman laughed. It was the first sincerely pleasant expression she wore.

"I don't care about the table cloth," the woman said. "I don't care about the whole thing. This whole princess thing? Too much. It's been like this her whole life."

"Princess thing?" Michonne asked.

The woman hummed and pretended to pick something off of the hideous dress she was wearing.

"And apparently it's the princess in the pea now," the woman said. "She only picked these dresses so that they'd be terrible. She didn't want to be outshined by anyone. That's Amy—always afraid someone's going to steal her thunder while she runs around unaware that she's the queen of the world."

Michonne cleared her throat.

"I work with Evan," Michonne said. "So—that's why I'm here. Michonne. Michonne Williams. But—why are you here? If you hate the bride so much?"

The blonde looked at her. She smiled and shook her head gently.

"I don't hate her," she said. "At least—I don't think I do. It's a long story. I'm Andrea. Andrea Harrison. Amy? My little sister. My little half-sister."

Michonne was a little struck. Amy was a little young for Evan, at least in Michonne's opinion, but nobody was asking her opinion. Still, Michonne didn't know the girl well at all. She'd only met her once before the wedding and that had been at an office gathering where she hung on Mike's arm like an ornament and barely squeaked a word out to anyone.

The blonde standing at the punch bowl? Andrea? She looked a good bit older than her sister. And Michonne could just sense it—there was quite the story there.

"You're not close to your sister?" Michonne asked, stepping around the table a little and leaning closer to Andrea so that her voice wouldn't carry.

"Close isn't exactly the word I would use," Andrea said. "In fact...close? It's probably the last word I would use."

There was a slight slur to her words. She wasn't drunk, but she could be—especially if she kept going with the spiked punch like she was.

"You—might want to take it easy," Michonne said. She laughed to herself. "You could throw up on that dress and never even know it."

Andrea laughed at that. She laughed, obviously, a little louder than she meant to laugh because she covered her mouth and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed her outburst.

"I hate this dress," she said. "I hate the dress. I hate the wedding. Because—you know what happens now, right? Amy's married and Andrea's the old maid. When are you going to get married? Except now? It's every other question. Look at Amy—she got married. Look at Amy—her life is so damn perfect. What are you doing with your life, Andrea? And the next thing?"

She paused to refill the plastic cup and Michonne watched her drink it. She worried now, even though it wasn't her place to worry about this woman, about how much she was drinking.

And how she must feel to drive her to drink like that.

Michonne was starting to forget her own woes about being dragged to the wedding to do what was dictated by decorum.

"What's the next thing?" Michonne asked.

Andrea looked at her.

"You said the next thing...after Amy has her life together?" Michonne said. "What's the next thing?"

"Oh," Andrea said. She nodded. "Oh—oh. Well, of course. The next thing. You know what the next thing is. It's always the next thing. Amy'll be pregnant. Knowing Amy? How well she does everything? Twins. Boy and a girl. Perfect. Pregnant next week, I'd say. But she'll gain like—six pounds. Lose it ten minutes after her perfect delivery. When are you going to have children, Andrea?"

Andrea hummed and went for a cocktail napkin to wipe her mouth. She dabbed at her lips and sighed.

"They ask the questions, but nobody listens to the answers," Andrea mumbled. "Nobody wants to hear the answers if they aren't the answers that they want. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

Michonne bit her lip. She didn't know how she'd gotten sucked into this, but she knew that she couldn't leave. She'd only wanted a cup of the punch—which wasn't really very good—and now she had somehow ended up with this strange new "best friend" that she couldn't imagine leaving behind. She couldn't abandon the sullen blonde at the punch bowl.

"Makes you wonder?" Michonne prompted.

"Mmmmm?" Andrea asked.

"Makes you wonder?" Michonne repeated. "When they don't listen to the answers that they don't want?"

"Oh," Andrea said. "Makes you wonder why they even ask them, doesn't it? I mean—you know the question and you know—you know how you want it answered so..."

She shrugged.

"So why even ask it? Just answer it for yourself, you know?" Andrea said.

Michonne felt a catch for a moment.

She had no little sister. She had no little half-sister, even. She was an only child. She was the pride and joy of her parents and she carried, whether she wanted it or not, all the expectations that they had for their offspring.

But she did know.

Because, for her? It had been what she was going to do with her life. What profession would she choose? And she'd chosen law. She had no real affection for the law that she'd chosen—she might have preferred something a little more personal—but she'd chosen what would make the most money and carry the most prestige. It was prestige for her parents. They could sit around, with their country club friends, and declare that Michonne was really making something of herself.

And then? It had been—when was she going to marry? That had been the worst. They, like the people who didn't want to hear Andrea's answers to whatever questions she was being asked, didn't want to hear that Michonne didn't really have an interest in any of the young men that were "proper" for her to marry. She didn't really have any interest in any young men. But that, of course, wasn't what they wanted to hear—and it wasn't allowed. So she'd married Dean.

And then? Then it was when was she going to have children? When was she going to give Dean a son? She'd had two children, one right after the other, the second not planned at all. And while she loved her daughters far more than she might have imagined she would—especially since she wasn't even sure she wanted children before they were born—she'd never given Dean a son.

Now? She was divorced. It was shameful to her parents, even though it had been Dean that had cheated. Surely she could have done something differently. Surely, somehow she had caused his infidelity.

It couldn't get worse than this—so they'd stopped asking questions.

"I do know," Michonne said.

Andrea looked at her. Michonne nodded.

"I do. I know exactly what you're talking about," Michonne said.

When Andrea nodded her head and started to dip her cup once more into the punch bowl, Michonne reached and put her hand over Andrea's to stop the action.

Andrea looked at her, almost looking angry enough to fight about it for a moment, and Michonne had to fight not to laugh. She shook her head gently.

"This stuff?" Michonne said. "This stuff is—it's rot gut. It's bad liquor. Cheap. Like everything here."

"Amy picked everything out," Andrea said. "It's her dream wedding."

Michonne bit back her smile even more.

"I'm not surprised," she said. She sucked in a breath. She wasn't sure what she was doing, and she wasn't sure why she was doing it, but she was going for it. "It's not my kind of place," Michonne added. "It's not—your kind of place. You don't belong here—getting drunk off cheap liquor. If you're going to get drunk? Wouldn't it be better to go somewhere comfortable? Get out of that—God forsaken dress? And—drink something that's worth the damage it does to your liver?"

Andrea looked at her a moment, brows furrowed by the surprise of the question, and then she relaxed her face.

"It would be nice," she said.

Michonne smiled and nodded her head gently.

"Yeah—it would be. I know—I'd love to get out of this dress. Put something on that's a little more comfortable. I've got—I don't know what your plans were—but I've got some really nice scotch at my house. It's just sitting there—there's never a special enough occasion to drink it. There's never anyone to share it with."

Andrea smiled at her and this time cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Are you asking me to go home with you?" Andrea asked.

Michonne struggled to swallow for a second, but she thought she did well enough. The truth was, she was terrified. She wasn't sure what she was asking. It felt like it was happening to her as much as she was putting it into play.

She hummed.

"I'm asking you if you'd like to—have a drink with me," Michonne said. "In my house. Maybe you could—tell me a little more about the questions they ask?"

Andrea smiled.

"I could," she said.

"And the answers they don't want to hear?" Michonne asked.

Andrea hummed.

"I could do that too," she said.

Michonne smiled and nodded.

"Good," she said. "Great. Can we go? Or did you need to—say goodbye or something?"

Andrea glanced back toward the tables where family and close friends were gathered—tables that she'd barely been near as far as Michonne had seen. She shook her head.

"No," she said. "I don't need to say anything. They won't even notice I'm gone."

Michonne gestured, then, toward the exit of the reception hall. Andrea walked with her for a moment, but then she got her attention by resting her hand on Michonne's shoulder. Michonne turned to find Andrea looking quite amused.

"What is it?" Michonne asked.

Andrea shrugged.

"I just thought—you know—that you might want your shoes," Andrea offered.


End file.
